1. Technical Field
This invention relates to accessing resources in a distributed computer system. More specifically, the invention address assignment of access privileges to a resource and the attachment of the privilege to the resource regardless of it's location in either a source data structure or a target data structure.
2. Background of the Invention
It is recognized in the art of computers and computer related technology that data is commonly organized in data structures. One common form of data structures is known in the art as a tree structure in which data elements are organized into nodes, with a root node at a top level of the structure, and branches emanating there from to attach to additional nodes at a next level of the data structure. The elements at the very bottom of the tree are called leaves. Accordingly, the tree structure is a hierarchical format for organizing data.
In a distributed computer system, multiple servers and/or client machines are in communication across a network connection. The servers functions in the network to manage network resources. Different servers may manage different categories of resources. For example, a file server is responsible for storing files, a print server is responsible for managing printers on the network, and a network server is responsible for managing network traffic. Servers are often dedicated to perform their server tasks.
It is known in the art to organize resources of the computer system in a manner similar to the tree structure. In such an organization, elements of the system are organized in a hierarchical manner, and functional calls are employed to control access to the resources. More specifically, a bound function call controls the bound of the elements selected for display, in which elements that are of the depth set in the call or below will be display, and elements that are higher than the depth are not displayed. In a similar manner, a depth function call controls the number of levels at or below the found value that are to be displaying. Elements whose depth is greater than the sum of the bound and depth, less one, will not be displayed. Accordingly, the depth and bound calls support specifying showing of elements of the tree structure at some specified depth.
However, the employment of the tree structure to resources of a networked computer system do not provide for manipulation of the roles and privileges assigned to the resources. More specifically, the prior art is limited to merely displaying the levels of the tree and what is represented in those levels. The prior art does not address access rights to the specified levels. It is imperative that a client machine have knowledge, or be presented with data providing knowledge, of resource and resource groups to which it is provided read and/or write privileges. Such presentation should convey both the location of the resources within the hierarchical structure of the network, as well as access privileges of the client machine to a selection of the resources presented.